


La mano d'oro

by queenofthorns



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), The Borgias, The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:44:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthorns/pseuds/queenofthorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cripple, a dwarf, a woman - Cesare Borgia hires the most unusual condottieri in Italy to help him fight the French and his own family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. La mano d'oro (Goldenhand)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cesare Borgia meets the most unusual condottiere in Italy.

_Nola, Campania, Italy  
January 1495_

Cesare Borgia smiled as he noted the rich crimson banners unfurling in a breeze which revealed gilded lions roaring defiance at the world. The Englishman they called “Goldenhand” had an eye for splendor, which would be amply fed by the gold Cesare and Micheletto carried. Cesare’s father, the pope, needed Jaime Lannister’s men to fight for him against the Colonna, the Orsini, the Sforza, and above all, against the French King who, unchecked, would swallow all of Italy and pick his teeth with its bones. So Cesare brought a king’s ransom - _a pope’s ransom_ \- and a paper to Campania, where he hoped to sign the _condotta_ exchanging Borgia gold for seven hundred soldiers with a reputation as bright as their captain's nickname.

In contrast to the rich furnishings of his tent, a tumble of velvet and gold, with jeweled weapons winking in the light, Sir Jaime Lannister was austerely garbed. He wore white, his only affectation a smooth golden glove over his right hand,  which, Cesare assumed, had earned him his name. There were two others present: a tall, beardless knight who glowered at Cesare, and a dwarf with mismatched eyes, whom Cesare supposed to be the fool.

“Welcome, my lord,” Sir Jaime said with a smile that bared his even white teeth. For the blink of an eye, Cesare imagined that somehow he had known this man for a lifetime, that they had been comrades and adversaries, that they had loved the same women and fought the same foes. He shook his head; now was not the time for idle fancy, nor for the rumors that swarmed around Jaime Lannister, each more fantastic than the last. It was said that Lannister had made and unmade kings in England, and that his father had been the richest and cruelest lord of that cold, damp island. Cesare did not care about rumors or even about the truth of the man's life; he cared only that Goldenhand and his men had yet to lose a battle in Italy, and that their reputation for honoring their contracts was unusual amongst the many _condottieri_ who infested Italy like fleas on a mangy dog. 

Cesare waited politely for Sir Jaime to dismiss the fool before their discussion of terms; instead Sir Jaime introduced the dwarf as “my younger brother, Tyrion.” When Cesare looked into those mismatched eyes, he realized that Tyrion Lannister was very far from being a fool.

“On the table, please,” the dwarf said in flawless Italian, gesturing to the box which strained even Micheletto’s wiry strength.

“I trust that is sufficient,” Cesare said.

Tyrion reached under the ducats and florins which  filled the box to brimming, and extracted a ruby the size of a quail’s egg and the color of heart’s blood. “Lannister crimson,” he said to Sir Jaime. “That will do nicely."

Jaime glanced at his glowering companion, whom he had failed to introduce to Cesare. "If truth be told," he said lightly, "I had hoped for sapphires.”

The tall knight’s scowl wavered for a moment, and the corner of his mouth twitched in what might generously be called a smile. Cesare noticed that his eyes were the limpid blue of a cloudless summer’s day.

“Shall we sign the contracts?” Cesare asked. He planned to leave Lannister’s camp immediately; though the prospect of more days in the saddle did not appeal, it was imperative that he return to Rome before his absence was noticed by enemy spies or by his brother Juan.

“Not before my brother reads them,” Sir Jaime said.

Tyrion scanned the pages guaranteeing that Sir Jaime Lannister known as “Goldenhand” and his men would fight exclusively for the Borgias for a period of twelve months, beginning on that very day. 

"How long before you are in Rome?" Cesare asked. His father had somehow survived poison and persuaded the French King to let him remain in St. Peter’s seat, but his enemies were still bold, still plotting, red vultures ready to descend on the corpse of the Borgia papacy. None was worse than della Rovere, who had brought the French to Italy.

"A fortnight," Sir Jaime said without hesitation. Cesare found himself strangely disappointed that this man was, after all, as much a braggart as any other _condottiero_ ; he raised a skeptical eyebrow. Cesare and Micheletto, two men alone with scarcely any baggage, had required six days of hard, swift riding to reach this place from Rome - Cesare had the aching back and thighs to prove it. An army, primarily composed of infantry, with slow-moving supply wagons, would require far more than a fortnight to make that journey.

"He doubts us, brother," Sir Jaime said.

Tyrion looked up from the papers and shrugged. "Many have, brother. And we have proven them wrong."

"Within fourteen days, my army will be in Rome, else you shall have half the gold you have brought us returned." Sir Jaime poured two cups of wine from a golden ewer which sat by Tyrion's elbow. "Shall we drink on it, your Eminence?"

Since the night of Orsini's attempt on the pope’s life, Cesare had never drunk from a stranger's cup. He hesitated.

“I have never poisoned a man,” Sir Jaime said. “I prefer cold steel for my killing. But if it will ease your mind, Lord Cesare, I will drink from the same cup.” 

Micheletto watched, hand on his sword, as Lannister took the goblet, left-handed, and swallowed half its contents before handing it to Cesare with another of his blade-sharp smiles. On Micheletto’s nod, Cesare raised the cup to his lips. "A superb vintage," he remarked.

“You have my brother to thank for that,” Sir Jaime said.

“The contracts are in order,” Tyrion interrupted, pushing the papers towards his brother. “And now I should like some of that superb wine as well.”

Sir Jaime scratched out a laborious signature with his left hand, and, for the first time, Cesare realized that the golden hand was not a glove. Lannister caught his stare. “I fight nearly as well with my left,” he said.

“I am certain that you do, signore,” Cesare said diplomatically. So long as Lannister’s men could fight, it was nothing to him if their leader was maimed. “There is another matter,” he said as he signed his own name with a careless flourish. "Too secret to put to paper."

"Assassinations will cost you extra," Tyrion Lannister said. “Another of those rubies, perhaps.”

“There is a baby,” Cesare said. “In the convent of Saint Cecilia.”

The blue-eyed knight's hand went to his sword-hilt, and he cleared his throat, but Jaime Lannister spoke first. "Your pardon, Lord Cesare," Jaime said. "My captain here does not permit the assassination of children." He reached for the _condotta_. 

"You mistake me, Sir Jaime," Cesare countered. "I do not mean for this child to be harmed. Quite the contrary; he must be protected at all costs."

The Lannister brothers exchanged glances, and Jaime replaced the contract in front of Tyrion. They evidently thought the child was Cesare's, and though they erred in the particulars, they were not mistaken in the sentiment; Lucrezia was dearer to Cesare than his own life, and the child born of her body was far dearer to him than any conceived out of his own numerous liaisons. Since the night Orsini had sent assassins to murder Cesare's sister and mother in their beds, Cesare had known that anyone who bore the Borgia name, even an infant so young as his nephew, was in unrelenting, mortal danger from all the myriad foes of their family. Who better to protect him than the _condottieri_ personally hired by Cesare?

"In that case..." Jaime began, but now it was the tall knight who interrupted.

“I will go with them to Rome, ahead of our army.” As though a veil had been lifted, Cesare saw that the freckled, blunt-featured face was unmistakably female. "I will protect the child." Her voice was hoarse, and the act of speaking seemed to cause her pain.

“A woman?” Cesare was angry now. Englishmen were noted for their odd humors, but this took matters too far. ”What is this foolery, Lannister? I sign a contract for a mercenary company, and instead you cheat me with a band of jesters, cripples and whores?”

“Careful, Lord Cesare!" Lannister's voice was cool and steady, but his living hand balled into a fist to match the golden one. “I am a cripple, it is true, but my brother’s jests draw blood, and Brienne is a high-born lady. Beware that she does not chastise you for your discourtesy!”

Micheletto’s dagger was already drawn, but the woman Brienne was quicker even than Cesare’s assassin, and the point of her sword stopped a hair from Cesare’s throat. If he swallowed - or spoke - her steel would pierce his skin.

Tyrion Lannister broke the tense silence with a guffaw. “Bravo, brother,” he said, setting down his wine to clap. “From untold riches to the slaughter of the pope’s son in only half an hour.”

Jaime glared at his brother, but then he too began to laugh. Only the woman did not smile, her gaze and her sword both fixed unwaveringly on Cesare.

“Put up your steel, Brienne, I beg you,” Jaime said, after he had caught his breath. “Lord Cesare spoke in haste."

Reluctantly, Brienne lowered her weapon, and Cesare breathed again. "The lady is the best fighter I’ve ever seen,” Jaime assured him. “No harm will come to any child she guards." 

Cesare considered his options: to give in to his anger and his pride, to tear up the condotta and leave with his gold – were such a course even possible, considering how gravely he and Micheletto were outnumbered – was to lose these men. And to lose them risked forfeiting all that was dearest to his family.

And then he too was struck by the absurdity of the situation. A dwarf, a woman and a man without a swordhand led the most feared company of soldiers in Italy, save those of the French  king. It sounded like the beginning of a joke, but no more so than the fact that Rodrigo Borgia believed he was chosen by God to reform the Papacy. Cesare nodded, his decision made; he would return to Rome with two companions and a promise from these mad Englishmen. “Put away your dagger, Micheletto,” he said. “Sir Jaime is one of us now; he intends us no harm. We will leave at dawn along with the Lady Brienne.”

The Lannisters and Cesare shared another cup of wine, and then Tyrion excused himself to see to the concealment of the Borgia gold and to begin the preparations for moving Goldenhand’s army.

“I must go as well, Jaime, and pack,” Brienne said in her hoarse voice.

Heedless of Cesare’s curious looks, Jaime took her right hand and brought it to his lips. “Godspeed, my lady,” he said. "Stay whole until we meet again.”

“I will, Jaime,” she murmured to his bent head. For the blink of an eye, she was beautiful. 

Cesare could not contain his curiosity. After Brienne ducked through the tent-flap, he asked: “This woman, what is she to you?”

“My companion. My comrade.” There was no more cruelty in Jaime’s smile. “And my conscience.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've only seen the first season of "The Borgias" and, while the characters are most definitely from the show's canon, since they played fast and loose with the dates, I had a lot of trouble reconciling events on the show with actual history (e.g. the _infans Romanus_ who is supposedly Lucrezia's son on the show wasn't born until 1498 or thereabouts, not in 1494.)


	2. Chi va piano … (She who goes quietly …)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pontecorvo, Italy, January 1495 - Brienne and Cesare Borgia reach an uneasy understanding. Or, it’s all water under the bridge…

  
_Pontecorvo, Italy  
January 1495_  


A sky the dark purple of fresh bruises shrouded the far banks of the Liri River. Cesare Borgia and his servant Micheletto crossed without difficulty, but a clap of thunder made Brienne’s gelding balk.

The horse tossed its head and stood firm mid-river, despite Brienne’s increasingly desperate attempts to coax it across the ford. She had no choice but to dismount, take the animal’s reins and wade through waist-high water, which promptly soaked through her breeches, sending icy rivulets down her legs and into her boots. She scrambled gracelessly up the muddy riverbank, wet, red-faced and panting, under the cool, amused gaze of Cesare Borgia.

“They say neither men nor horses can stand for long against King Charles’s cannon,” he remarked softly after she had mounted again. It was another of his verbal feints, the latest in the constant questioning of her courage and competence she had experienced for half her life. Cesare did not disturb her calm; no one who had been companion to Jaime and Tyrion Lannister for eight years could be a stranger to barbed words, though the Lannisters rarely aimed their arrows at her.

 “Our men will,” Brienne promised. Jaime would take Cesare’s words as a challenge. 

Cesare shrugged. “I would like to believe this, and that is why I made the condotta with your company. But belief is not as valuable as proof.”

“Our Lord chided St. Thomas for those very words.” 

The words had scarcely left her lips when she realized they might be taken for blasphemy by her companion, though she suspected he might not care. Cesare Borgia was a cardinal in name, but there was nothing holy about him or his father, Pope Alexander. When Rodrigo Borgia won the Papacy,Tyrion Lannister won three hundred florins from the captain of King Ferrante’s guard. No one else had bet on the Spaniard, whose reputation for greed and scandal trailed in long threads from the hem of his scarlet robe. Other princes of the Church kept mistresses and advanced their children, but even amidst such corruption, the Borgias’ naked ambition was noteworthy. _Guard your tongue_ , Brienne reminded herself. _The child you were hired to protect is innocent, no matter what its parentage_.

Cesare arched a sardonic eyebrow. “Your wit is as dangerous as your blade.” Brienne could not say whether he meant his words to be a compliment or a warning.

Micheletto, who had been observing Brienne’s equine struggles with something close to a smile, spoke to Cesare. Brienne’s Italian was serviceable at best, not nearly good enough to keep pace with the rapid flow of his words. Cesare nodded, and turned to Brienne.

“Micheletto says the storm is nearly upon us, and it will be a bad one. By your leave, we will stop nearby, in Pontecorvo.” As though to punctuate his words, a few chill drops splashed down on Brienne’s bare neck.

“You have no need of my leave,” she told Cesare. 

“No, he does not,” Micheletto said, slowly and clearly, like a schoolmaster talking to a fractious child. 

_He has not forgiven my sword at his master’s throat,_ Brienne thought, _though we are allies now._ _Just as I cannot forgive the man who cost Jaime his hand._

Pontecorvo was a papal city, and Cesare Borgia was the Pope’s son, but they did not make for the Rocca, the great fortress which  loomed  above them; instead, they crossed the curved bridge which  gave the town its name. Brienne caught glimpses of white foam on the seething river below and the heavens opened just as they reached the other side of the bridge. Rain descended in torrents, so fast that it bounced up when it hit the slick stones of the narrow streets, assaulting the riders from above and below, and drenching them all the way down to their skins.

The inn to which Micheletto led them was mercifully warm, dry, and empty save for the three travelers. It was too much to hope for a hot bath, but Brienne was afforded the opportunity to change her soaking clothes. When she returned to the common room, she noted that Cesare had also changed, and that Micheletto had procured them a thin stew with a few forlorn chunks of meat bobbing in a greasy broth, a flat loaf, and a chipped earthenware flagon of wine to wash the food down. Brienne's mouth watered; the ride and the rain had given her an appetite even for these meager offerings.

At a glance from Cesare, the landlord withdrew, and for a time there was no sound save the banging of the inn’s wooden shutters in the wind, and the click of Micheletto’s jaw as he gnawed at the hard bread. 

Cesare set down his spoon, his stew half-eaten, took a sip of his wine, and grimaced. _He has not spent much time in the field_ , Brienne thought, _or he would know that sour wine and poor meat is better than none at all._

She cleared her throat and asked him: “Why did we come here?”

“The storm,” Micheletto answered for his master.

“Yes,” she said. “But why here, and not the Rocca? The castellan would have admitted you.” 

“You know the Rocca?” Micheletto asked.

“I know of it,” Brienne said. She made it her business to know the fortresses their company might be called upon to take. The Rocca had never fallen, save by treachery, and treachery was a business Brienne left to others. 

Cesare exchanged a glance with Micheletto. “Yes, the castellan would have served us a banquet,” he said, in French, which though accented was easier for Brienne to understand than Italian. “But once we left, word would have spread of my whereabouts. I did not wish it known that I was gone from the Vatican, nor whom I met on my travels.”

“In a fortnight’s time,” Brienne said, “when Jaime brings an army to Rome, your enemies will know. That many men are hard to hide.”  

“It was not my enemies whom I wished to deceive,” Cesare said.

“If not your enemies, then ...”

Another glance at Micheletto, and Cesare said, “My brother Juan. And my father.”

“But your father’s name was on the contracts ...”

“No,” Cesare said. “The condotta was between myself and Jaime Lannister alone.”

Jaime planned the battles, Tyrion managed the contracts, and Brienne trained the soldiers: this arrangement had helped the three of them turn a handful of broken men into the _Leoni d’Oro_ , a superb fighting force which had a well-deserved reputation for success. In the dark days following Jaime’s imprisonment, when they had not known whether he would live or die, she and Tyrion between them had managed to keep the _Leoni_  together, but now Brienne feared they might not last the twelve months of this new contract. 

Brienne understood why Cesare Borgia wished to bind Jaime’s Lions,  _her_ Lions, to himself and not to his father or to the Papacy. An well-trained army, however small, was a better guarantee of power than the ducats of a Florentine banker or a family name that was reviled across Italy.

As for Jaime, he still relished a challenge - _an adventure,_ he would call it. He would leap at the chance to pit his skill, and Brienne’s and that of all their men, against forces far greater than his own, if only to show that he could win, no matter what the odds. Jaime had learned caution in Naples, along with suffering, but he was still a man for dancing on the knife’s edge. It was Tyrion who puzzled Brienne; she would not have believed he would back Cesare Borgia alone, without the power of his father’s position to back him. If Cesare fell, the _Leoni_ , and Brienne and Tyrion and Jaime would all fall with him. 

Mistaking her frown, Cesare explained. “I do not intend to fight against my father, but for him.”

“Then why did he not hire us himself?”

Cesare took another sip of his sour wine. “Since we were babes in swaddling clothes,” he said, “my father planned that Juan would be a soldier, I would follow Father into the Church, and my sister Lucrezia would be a princess.” His face softened briefly into a fleeting smile. “She is the only one of us suited for the path our father chose.”

“Your brother ---”

“My brother is a fool,” Cesare said. “Alas, my father cannot see it. He cleaves to Juan as his general.” He leaned forward, points of candle-flame glittering in his liquid dark eyes. 

Micheletto finished scouring his bowl with a piece of bread, drained his cup, and reached into their saddlebags for a small box he rattled before he placed it on the table. Cesare grinned, and opened the box. Its sides folded down to become a tiny chessboard with exquisitely carved pieces in ebony and ivory

“Do you care to play, my lady?”

Tyrion had taught her the game, long ago, at Casterly Rock; though she rarely beat him, her patience served her well when she played against Jaime, who alternated between flashes of tactical brilliance and impulsive bravado. Tyrion had also taught her that watching a man with a chessboard could tell you a great deal about his character, and at this moment she wished very much to know more about Cesare Borgia.

She shook her head. “No,” she lied. 

Micheletto took black, and Cesare took white. He moved his queen’s pawn, and light caught the great red ruby he wore on his middle finger.

“I am surprised you do not play,” he remarked to Brienne as Micheletto fingered first a pawn, and then a black knight. “They say chess is training for war.”

_Then they lie_ , Brienne thought. War was no game; it was numbing boredom punctuated by sudden moments of terror. War was blood, clotted and stinking, broken limbs trampled into mud and the fading screams of dying men for their mothers. War turned middling men into brutes, and good men into corpses. 

The chess game began in earnest, and both men fell silent; Micheletto played well, but his every move was a reaction to Cesare’s relentless advance. He lost two pawns, a knight, and a rook. 

“Check,” Cesare said.

Micheletto pondered his next move, and Cesare turned his attention from the chessboard to Brienne. 

“My father has sent emissaries to all the cities of Italy,” he said. “Charles will not be content with Naples alone. Your English  king did us no favors when he made peace with the French two years ago.”

“He is not my  king,” Brienne growled. _My king died nine years ago, on a bloody field in Leicestershire_. 

“Checkmate,” Cesare said. 

Micheletto sighed and slid a gold coin across the table to his master. He collected the pieces and stowed the box back into the saddlebags. “By your leave, my lord, I’ll check on the horses,” he said.

The storm had gentled, though Micheletto’s lantern revealed that rain still fell in swathes across the inn’s courtyard. After he shut the door, Brienne asked Cesare: “He is your servant, and yet you take his money?”

“There is no pleasure to be had in a game where nothing is at stake. If I did not take his money when he loses, he might let me win, and then I would never know if I won because of my skill, or because he is my servant.”

Brienne untangled her legs from under the table and rose, only to be stopped by Cesare’s hand on her arm. “Stay,” he said. 

“Is that a command, my lord?” Brienne asked. Standing, Cesare was nearly as tall as Jaime, but seated, he had to crane his neck to look up at her, giving him a nearly suppliant air.

“A request,” he said, removing his hand. “I have answered your questions; now, if it please you, answer mine.”

“Surely the time to ask questions was before you paid us,” she replied tartly.

“Oh, I have every faith you will live up to the terms of your contract,” Cesare said. “I am simply ... curious. I have never met anyone quite like you, or your companions. Please sit with me.”

Brienne sat down again. “Very well, my lord,” she said. 

“You don’t like me,” Cesare said, once she was seated. His teeth flashed white, in something that was not quite a smile and not quite a snarl, as though the idea that Brienne might presume to dislike him was both absurd and insulting.

She considered her answer. _Jaime was like this_ , _when I first knew him, armored in power and privilege from the cradle,_ she thought. But time and grief and his maiming had stripped him of that burnished-steel belief in his own pre-eminent place in the world.

Brienne looked at Cesare with new eyes, and saw with a start how young he was, how smooth his forehead, and how unlined the corners of his mouth and eyes. He was as young as she had been when she stood beside Richard on Ambion Hill at Bosworth. She fingered the faint white scar on her neck, and for a heartbeat, she felt the noose tighten around her throat.

“Some might take your silence for agreement,” Cesare continued. “You do not like me?”

Brienne returned abruptly from the past to the present. “My lord,” she said softly. “I do not know you.”

Cesare snorted. “I think you know already that ignorance is no barrier to contempt.”

Brienne nodded slowly, thinking of the countless years of binding her breasts and finding ways to guard her privacy for the most base of her body’s functions, because no man would ever follow a woman into battle, even if she were a better soldier than he.

“You think I was born free,” Cesare continued, “as you were not, because of your sex. You think I have never had to struggle. All my life, I have been known as Borgia’s bastard, the Spaniard’s get from a Roman whore.” He raised an eyebrow. “It has never been clear which crime is the greater, being a bastard or being a Spaniard.”

“And now your father is the Pope,” Brienne said. She had fought all her life for her own freedom, with none of the advantages this boy enjoyed.

“And now my father is the Pope,” Cesare repeated. “And he plans that someday I will follow him onto that throne. For now, he bids me know my place, and expects me to curtsey in my scarlet gown and thank him for making me a prince of the Church.”

“You do not want that?” Brienne asked, puzzled by the bitterness of his tone.

“I want to _fight_. My father knows it is what I have always wanted.” Cesare slammed his fist onto the table, hard enough to rattle the brass candlesticks. “You and your _Leoni_ , you will make him see that I am the only son who can protect our family.”

An icy finger stroked down Brienne's spine. The wars waged between fathers and sons had a habit of consuming even those who did not share their blood.

Cesare unclenched his hand, and laid it flat upon the table. "A thousand pardons, my lady," he said, his voice lowered. "I did not mean to startle you." He smiled and for a moment, Brienne believed in the absolute sincerity of his apology. "Perhaps a change of topic would be in order."

"Or perhaps we should adjourn?" 

"Oh no," Cesare said. "You have learned so much about me." His grin sharpened. "Some of which I did not intend. And now I must learn something of you, so we are even."

"Very well," Brienne said, hoping he would not ask her anything that would force an falsehood from her. She had learned to lie without blushing or stammering, but Cesare Borgia's fine straight nose seemed unusually capable of sniffing out prevarication. _  
_

"How is it, I wonder, that two English lords and an English lady came to be in Italy?"

"Matthias Corvnius sent us to Naples," she said, speaking nothing but the absolute truth. "To fight against the Pope."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally posted this in August 2013, but having extensively rewritten the whole thing, split it into two chapters, and changed a bunch of things, I figured it made sense just to repost it! More is coming soon, I promise!!
> 
> Many, many thanks to the divine Miss_M, who has been the most amazing (and patient) beta I could have hoped for and has helped me thrash out future details!!
> 
> A quick note to say that Cesare Borgia is the Cesare from "The Borgias" not the Cesare of history.

**Author's Note:**

> I've only seen the first season of "The Borgias" and, while the characters are most definitely from the show's canon, since they played fast and loose with the dates, I had a lot of trouble reconciling events on the show with actual history (e.g. the _infans Romanus_ who is supposedly Lucrezia's son on the show wasn't born until 1498 or thereabouts, not in 1494.)


End file.
